


impossible job

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 04:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8149030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: If you have an impossible job, call Eames.
If you have a job where one man wants another man’s banking info, you most definitely do not. 
This is not just because Eames’ dyslexia makes it impossible to leave him to memorize the numerical contents of the safe without getting jumbled, because in an important job, any point man worth a damn will make sure there’s an architect with a solid short-term handy to be a receptacle for that kind of info. It’s because Eames gets bored.





	

If you have an impossible job, call Eames.

If you have a job where one man wants another man’s banking info, you most definitely do not. 

This is not just because Eames’ dyslexia makes it impossible to leave him to memorize the numerical contents of the safe without getting jumbled, because in an important job, any point man worth a damn will make sure there’s an architect with a solid short-term handy to be a receptacle for that kind of info. It’s because Eames gets  _ bored.  _ Eames doesn’t even care about money — it’s all easy come easy go with him — he’s just as happy to stay home and read at his tortoise pace if he thinks that will be more interesting than another job that’s just more of the same. 

Arthur knows all of this. It’s one of the reasons that Eames drives him nuts. The whole world is based around doing mind-numbing jobs. Waitresses and mechanics do it all the time. It’s what makes them jobs. Otherwise they’d call them  _ funs.  _

Arthur said this to Eames, once, during a session of ill-advised post-job drinking. They’d put a thought in someone else’s head. Dom was going to go back to his children, Arthur was going to take a week off before finding a new job. 

“That’s the tedious thing about you, love,” Eames said. 

Eames called Arthur condescending just a week before, but that was projection, surely, because every time Eames looks at Arthur, Arthur can feel his derision like a patina of Los Angeles smog. He’s so fucking self satisfied that he’s a _ true artist _ and Arthur is, as he has charmingly put it, ‘still running the rat race, even among innovative psychological crime.’ 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m so dreadfully middle class,” Arthur had replied, taking a long pull of his own glass and flipping Eames off with his free hand. 

“I think the worst part is that you  _ like it. _ ” 

“Alright, that’s enough of your charming company for one evening,” Arthur says, pushing himself up and to his feet and making a gesture at the bartender, a clear  _ run my card and get me out of here,  _ and he complies. Arthur scribbles his signature  _ Theodore Miller  _ and a tip before he looks back at Eames, who is as amused and self-satisfied as ever. 

“Call me,” he says, sounding coyly flirtatious, and Arthur isn’t sure what to think until he finishes, “if something worth my time comes up.”

“Fuck off,” Arthur mutters, with minimal heat, and walks out through the lobby of the hotel. He has a room in this one, but suddenly Eames knowing where he’ll be for the evening leaves the taste of sawdust in his mouth. 

*

That was the last time he’d seen Eames, although Eames had sent him a quick text consult about a job of his own, three weeks later, and promptly wired Arthur a grand and some pennies as a consult fee and subtle dig. Eames was infuriatingly competent about mixing the two elements. 

Now, though, he’s got something that seems straightforward on the surface. He’s working as an architect and doing almost the same amount of background research as he would be doing if he were working point, because he can’t just turn that part of him off. He’s yet to find a serious red flag, and yet his extractor is insisting that they call him. Eames. 

Arthur is in immediate hackles. “Why would we need Eames?”

He gives a listless shrug, which is not the kind of professional behavior a person wants out of someone in charge of a job. 

*

He doubles down on his research. Militarization? No firm evidence in favor, but Arthur hardly considers that a massive challenge. Factors of interest? He’s hardly a cryptographer. Most damning is the fact that the info they’re searching for is quantitative. No art history angle or subjective data to comb through. There should be nothing in this job that would warrant Eames’ presence on this job. They don’t even need a fucking forger. 

“I don’t  _ know,  _ Arthur,” his extractor finally snaps at him. Jason looks a little fried around the edges, cagey from warding off Arthur’s questions for the full two days he has known that Eames is coming. “He asked me if he could work this job, and his payment demands were reasonable for him being here. I figured it’d be good, I don’t know, insurance. You’re the last person I’d expect to have objections against extra precautions. Usually those get you all wet.” 

To be honest, that’s a fair assessment.  _ Except _ , “He’s always got an ulterior motive,” Arthur says.

“And you’ve worked with him before. Multiple times, even,” Jason points out, with an eyebrow raised. 

“Yeah. When I  _ know  _ what he’s getting out of a job. When it’s something he’s never done before or he’ll get a chance to steal something in a city he was planning on casing this year. He goes nuts over the chance to do real world heists with no setup cost.” 

Or royalty, Arthur thinks without mentioning it, because it wouldn’t do for the rest of the community to know everything he knows. It’s his general policy, to be head and shoulders above the crowd, informationally speaking. Also, he’s been sitting on that knowledge for a while, that Eames would literally pay  _ him  _ to do the job if he could line up an opportunity for him to break into the mind of someone with a suitable title. 

“To be honest, Arthur, I  _ super  _ don’t give a fuck what he wants to steal, so long as he gets us in and out of the mark’s brain safely. He’s a wild card, but one I like on my side.” Jason trailed off with another inelegant shrug, and it annoyed Arthur to be as aware as he was that Jason hadn’t said anything wrong. 

“I’m going to find out,” Arthur said, through gritted teeth. 

The thing is, Arthur’s father had often explained to him: you can’t trust a man who doesn’t need his paycheck. It’s why his father didn’t like to hire the childless. Arthur himself didn’t necessarily need a paycheck anymore, but he hardly lived like it. He liked taking a regular sum. He didn’t take vacations. Fuck Eames and his weird sanctimonious approach to being concerned with money. 

“Well,” he says. “Let me know if you do. I guess? Maybe use your best discretion to decide if I really want to know or if it’s a part of your weird personal thing with Eames.”

Arthur, for the record doesn’t have a  _ weird personal thing  _ with Eames. He let’s Jason know that with a vivid string of words not typically configured that way, because he has a high-stress job and creative cursing helps him unwind. 

Later, Arthur finds himself muttering, hunched over two laptops and a freshly printed and assembled dossier on the man himself: “ _ There is no weird personal thing with Eames. _ ” Arthur blinks at himself blearily the moment he finds himself surprised that he has spoken. 

Perhaps it  _ is  _ time to go to bed. 


End file.
